As gray wolves divide conservationists and ranchers, a mediator tries to tame all sides

When Francine Madden heard about the Wyoming man who killed a yellow wolf after harming it with his snowmobile and showed it to his local bar, he was worried, but not too surprised.

He has seen a lot during his nearly three decades working as a wildlife conflict mediator. He has settled controversies over Ugandan gorillas and Bhutanese tigers, but for 50 years, wolf control has been an intractable problem in America.

Since 1973, the gray wolf has been on the federal government’s endangered species list. When wolves are on the list, advocates say protections help preserve wolves’ natural habitat and allow them to roam the great American West as they have done for centuries — not to be captured, as some say, “like biting insects.” On the other hand, some ranchers say there are too many wolves and they have to bear the economic – and emotional – cost of lost livestock.

“I watch my animals die and get killed,” Kathy McKay, owner of the 1,600-acre K-Diamond-K farm in Washington state, told CBS News. He says he does not sleep at night because he fears for the lives of his animals, and he has lost about 40 wolves.

When wolves come off the endangered species list, as they have in less than 48 countries, advocates say wolves are being killed indiscriminately. Lawyer and attorney Collette Adkins, director of wildlife conservation at the Center for Biological Diversity, says wolf carcasses are being “collected” and there is a “cowboy mentality” around the species that is often overlooked. you are important.

Enter Madden. Hired as a mediator by the federal government in December, this is his second foray into the morass, albeit on a larger scale. He helped an 18-person task force in Washington State deal with gray wolves in 2015, helping to make strategic decisions about population management.

Nearly ten years later, he and his solid Constructive Conflict are back, this time on a national level. But in some ways, the sides are more solid. Madden says he’s speaking to Americans who “feel their way of life, or what they care about, is in real danger.” However he still hopes to have all sides at the table starting in 2025.

The sides are drawn along party lines

Thousands of gray wolves roamed the American wilderness for centuries until hunters, ranchers and others nearly exterminated the species. In 1973, the federal government listed them as endangered in the lower 48 states. Fewer than 1,000 wolves roamed the US at the time, according to the International Wolf Center.

Protected from hunting, gray wolves began to spread, and some people worried that they were killing animals and threatening communities and fields. Soon the pushback began.

Animals were killed, businesses were closed, and parties – often drawn by party lines – dug in, each convinced that they knew the right way to control the gray wolves. For many, “the wolves became a symbol of government abuse,” Adkins said. The latest action has been even more divisive; as the population increased, the gray wolf was removed from the federal government’s endangered species list in 2020 and management was moved to the states.

The wolves began to die. One example: a third of Wisconsin residents were killed by poachers and poachers when defenses were removed, researchers at the University of Wisconsin found in 2021.

John Vucetich, a professor at Michigan Technological University, along with more than 100 other scientists, wrote to the Biden administration to restore security. Lawsuits began, and on February 10, 2022, gray wolves in the lower 48 states — excluding Northern Rocky Mountain residents — were added to the list by court order.

The news devastated McKay, who was born on a farm his parents bought in 1961.

“I don’t know how much control people 300 miles away have over our lives and the lives of our herds,” McKay said. “Why do we even have to ask?”

Different opinions, further divisions

Members of the working class in Washington state had not been able to advance any policy in the years before Madden arrived, he said, and “they were not able to speak positively or positively.” constructive.”

“The cost of the conflict is staggering,” he said, adding that no agency has been able to calculate the economic toll – or the social cost – of the conflict.

“We were not so comfortable in the same room, with different feelings. “Ranchers were shouldering the burden, and there were environmentalists who we felt had no skin in the game,” said Washington rancher Molly Linville, a member of the labor group whose husband’s family He has worked 6,000 hectares of land for over 100 years.

A year after Madden began discussing the civil dispute, “they were able to come to a resolution that everyone agreed on,” he said. At the end of the three-year, government contract of $ 1.2 million, he said, the team of workers created a series of constructive strategies to control wolves in their country.

Madden brings that same confidence to the national debate.

He is nearing the end of the first year of a three-year, $3 million contract. His team hired three companies to work on the project; the other, a film company, will record interviews surrounding the gray wolves and share the film with the public. His team has begun to select about 24 participants who will have ongoing discussions about how to meet the blue wolves.

He went to Montana in June to meet with cattle producers and reservations and visit tribal communities. In the past year, he has met people from Wisconsin, Montana, California, Idaho, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Colorado, Maryland, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Madden admits that “skepticism” abounds when he tells people about his team’s handling of the war, but says that many are open to speaking out because they feel that “the current atmosphere of conflict in this country is hurting people and wolves.”

He still believes in the ability of Americans to listen to each other.

“There is real hope that as a community, in this very divided community, we can come together for this discussion to take the right step for the long-term sustainability of communities, cultures and wildlife conservation, ” said Madden. .